An OK break, I guess. Got some rookies, but no one notable (no Price, Toews or Kane).

I’m not getting the whole “OPC buyback” thing. I have hundreds of 89-90 OPC cards. Why would I want more? They are neither all that hard to find, nor are they all that attractive (though I *do* like the set). I mean, if I got a card from like 1978 or something, that’d be cool because it at least 30 years old…and not this 18-year old junk.

The third (and final so far) blaster box I purchased. I hit the jackpot!!!.

The breakdown:

– 69 base cards
– 7 Marquee Rookies
– 2 Base Parallels
– 1 Rookie Parallel
– 1 Stat Leaders
– 1 Record Breakers
– 1 Team Checklist
– 1 OPC Buyback (1989-90 OPC Jon Casey)– 1 OPC Buyback Autograph (1983-84 Marcel Dionne)
This is awesome! The card of Marcel Dionne–a Hall of Fame player–is signed neatly in blue ink. The odds of getting one of these cards is 1 out of every 1440 packs (or so). Not only am I surprised to get this card in a blaster box from Target, but I got this after buying only three blaster boxes–42 packs total. It’s one thing to buy a ton of packs and finally get a card; it’s another thing to get a card relatively early on in collecting a set.

The Dionne auto came with a certificate of authenticity, from Upper Deck:
I am really glad that I bought all of the blaster boxes at Target that day, as they had three of them and I bought all three. As many of you know, I collect hockey autographs.

OK, I am totally convinced that Upper Deck could crap in a cardboard box, label it O-Pee-Chee, and people would still buy it.

I should know…because I am proof. Guilty as charged.

But my whole diatribe about the quality of the new O-Pee-Chee set will have to wait. Right now, I’m here to bust open some packs in the hopes of getting some good cards, and maybe even build a set.

Since I missed the boat on Upper Deck Series 1, I figured I would try and build out a set of 2007-08 O-Pee-Chee. I recently went to Target, and bought a few “blaster boxes”–14 pack wax boxes that are $20 each. I think what fueled my sudden desire to buy this set is that the local dealer told me that the new OPC set was “Canada only”, and apparently boxes were going for a lot on the secondary market.

Honestly, though, I just love hockey cards. And since I could not stomach the thought of buying some set that costs $100 a box(!), I figured this would be a good set to get into.

I think I like this set a little better than other Upper Deck sets–but not Upper Deck proper–because the rookie cards are seeded 1 in every 2 packs, instead of 1 in every 4 or 6 packs, like other sets. So, that means that I’d have to buy, oh, 200 packs of these cards to get 100 rookie cards. Looks like I’ve got some work to do…

I saw this commercial on G4TV’s Attack of the Show, where they count down their top five best (worst?) short internet videos. Coming in at number one was this car commercial for local Pittsburgh auto dealer A & L Motor Sales. It “stars” Penguins players Colby Armstrong, Maxime Talbot, Sergei Gonchar and Evgeny Malkin. In typical “local auto dealer” commercial fashion, this commercial is awesomely bad.

“You? Who are you? I thought they only took care of sup-pear-stars like me” I don’t know what got into Talbot, but he’s almost as funny as Ilya Bryzgalov.

I also like the way that Malkin doesn’t get any speaking lines, but still gets to show off his good hands with that key catch.

For those of you who don’t know, The Onion is the premier weekly satirical newspaper here in the U.S. of A.–sort of like Mad Magazine, but more sophisticated…and yet not pretentious. They poke fun at all things, like politics, current events and sports. Once in a while, they even dis’ on hockey, as evidenced by this photo:

1992 Pinnacle Baseball card #594 – Tom Glavine

This week’s Card of the Week is actually a baseball card – with a twist!

The 1992 Pinnacle Baseball set had a card of ace Atlanta Braves pitcher Tom Glavineskating on ice, stick in hand. You see, in high school, Glavine was talented at baseball and hockey. Upon graduation in 1984, he was chosen in both the NHL and MLB drafts, Continue reading “Hockey Might-Have-Been”

Last week, I received my 12 MVP Rookie Redemption Packs from Upper Deck. Each pack had three cards, for a total of 36 cards. Unfortunately, I did not get all 30 cards that I needed; I go 27 of the 30, plus 9 duplicates. Here are the cards I got in my 12 packs:

It’s nice that I got a spare Jonathan Toews card (yay!), I am sorry that I didn’t get a spare card of Patrick Kane. I’ve heard of Bobby Ryan and Niklas Backstrom, so having spares of them can’t be a bad thing…but I’m drawing a blank at Bryan Little or Andrew Cogliano.

The three “update rookies” that I still need are:

365 Nick Foligno371 Brett Sterling373 Devin Setoguchi

Overall, I need those three update rookies, 26 other rookie cards and one base card, and then I’ll have the entire MVP set. I am planning on adding my want lists and trade lists to this site soon. In the meantime, if anyone has that Folingo, Sterling or Setoguchi cards for trade, drop me a line.

6 cards, 12 illustrations of 90s greats

Inserted in packs of 1992-93 Pinnacle hockey trading cards, Team Pinnacle featured twelve of the greatest men to lace up skates in the 1990s. Two centers, two left wingers, two right wingers, two goalies and four defensemen are depicted in these action-oriented illustrations. While you’d think these dudes were starters in the NHL All-Star Game, or named to the NHL All-Star Team (as selected by the sports writers), that is not the case here. These guys are “Team Pinnacle”, as selected by Pinnacle (a.k.a. Score) Trading Card Company. Continue reading “Review: 1992-93 Team Pinnacle”